Trading on Buzz

By Kathleen Kingsbury

George W. Bush is worth more than Brad Pitt. Well, at least on Trendio com a site where you can speculate on the news. Investors start with $10,000 in play money, which they can plow into some 200 terms, like Michael Jackson, gunman and Dick Cheney. Trading prices of the terms fluctuate according to how often they appear in stories from 3,000 media sources--so the value of Brad Pitt spiked on news of his daughter's birth. But if you can't make real money, what's the point? "Media consumers don't give much thought to the news they receive," says creator Jean Agersberg, a Swedish economics student. The 10,000-plus members who have joined since Trendio was launched last month must be thinking harder now; the savviest investors' portfolios are worth about $2.5 million. Looking for a sure thing? Agersberg says he's bullish on words related to war and natural disaster: "You can never go wrong with carnage."